Tradition vs Progress

Questdog

Prince
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I just concluded an experiment where I played 500 turns at Marathon speed with a Progress start and then restarted the same game and went Tradition. This is with the 9-15 build (though the Tradition game was with the hotfix). Both games were wide empires (because I cannot go tall, no matter how hard I try; there is always juicy looking land outside my borders). After 500 turns, my tech and policy count were identical (middle of the Medieval Era). The main differences in the two were that my production was a lot higher in my Tradition game and I got the 3rd religion with Tradition, but did not come close to one with Progress. My happiness is a bit higher in my Progress game, though the Tradition game is not hurting (yet). The Progress game has more cities than the Tradition game (22 to 16). All of my cities in Tradition are a bit higher than their counterparts in base production, but my capital in Tradition is more than double the production of the Progress counterpart. After 500 turns, there are still bonus tiles my Progress capital has failed to annex in its 2nd ring and only one 3rd ring tile that does not belong to the 2nd ring of another city has been claimed. My Tradition capital has all of its workable tiles claimed and is currently annexing 4th ring tiles.

I do not see where Progress gave me any edge over Tradition, except in Happiness. Of course, that could change going forward, but the Tradition game has just been more fun and I will not be playing the Progress game further.

In both games my continent was populated by China, Carthage and America. I was England (as always). In the Progress game, all three of the other empires took Authority. In my Tradition game, only America took Authority, while Carthage took Progress and China took Tradition. China taking Tradition snagged a lot of early wonders (beating me to the Great Library by 1 turn, even though I had invested in it). In both games, China was very close (12 tiles on Large map) and declared an early war and was wiped out by me, though when we both had Tradition, it was tougher because she got walls in a few cities, including her capital before I had any catapults. Carthage with Authority was a power and declared war on my Progress empire in the Classical Era, though I easily beat her back. With Progress she was inept. She had a massive navy with Authority, but no ships that I could see with Progress. America was Friendly to me in both games, being the furthest of the three from me, but when I had Progress, we had a DoF at turn 500. In the Tradition game, he and I were the only religions on the continent and this strained relations a bit.

Anyway, the takeaway for me was the the only thing Progress gave me over Tradition was the Happiness to go wider, but this was more than offset by the overall production, religion and mega-capital of Tradition. One other plus of Progress, especially on Marathon speed where it takes 23 turns to build a farm, is the boost to worker construction rate, but this is kind of negated by the fact that Progress has a hard time finding tiles to improve. After 500 turns, I have one 11 pop city that reports it expects to annex a new tile in 346 turns..... Of course you could buy tiles, but especially in the medieval era, gold is at a premium with all the unit upgrades and building investments.
 
Of course, that could change going forward, but the Tradition game has just been more fun and I will not be playing the Progress game further.
Of course you could buy tiles, but especially in the medieval era, gold is at a premium with all the unit upgrades and building investments.

I'm always a fan of experiments so some good notes here. However, the caveats you mentioned are quite important. Progress has a strong overall snowball effect than Tradition, so the longer the game goes the more I would expect progress' bonuses to matter. And Progress has more gold than Tradition, so can afford some tile buying in comparison (though that said Tradition's border expand is underrated in many analysis, its actually a very nice benefit).
 
On other thing I forgot to mention, is that in my Progress game, the turn I entered the Medieval Era, I got a notification that an unknown Civ had entered the Renaissance.... I am halfway through the Medieval Era in my Tradition game and no report yet on anyone at Renaissance.

Edit: I also did not mention that in the Tradition game, I tried not to take advantage of foreknowledge and settled the cities in the same order that I had in the Progress game.
 
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One thing to consider about Progress is that it sets the stage well for Statecraft and Industry, and all three have synergy with a certain meta-strategy: Trade Empire

Scientists, Engineers, Civil Servants and Merchants do not cap with guild buildings and being able to settle or conquer anywhere ad infinitum (as long as you build a Courthouse) is powerful if you plan on getting all the city-states to vote you the Earth Hegemon. You can also take advantage of cultured or advanced neighbors with trade routes, get up to speed, then take their land / wonders, etc.

The key with Progress is being able to settle and expand without having to worry about the costs as much. Tradition is terrible at that. Quality matters on a per city basis more than Quantity, so you can rule whatever you need to get the job done in setting up city-state trade routes around the world with Progress.

Historical example - nobody cared about the Caribbean until trans-Atlantic trade made it profitable to not only venture that far away from Europe, but to maintain holdings there. The Caribbean islands can't support that many people. The weather sucks. But that isn't the point, and the ferocity with which England, France, Spain, etc. fought over them was because of the ports and proximity to other ports through trade.

Progress is the most colonial in that respect. Setting up a Hispaniola or Curacao is much easier for Progress.
 
How to put this? Progress is about controlling territory, monopoly bonuses, having every building built and a well improved territory. This in turn, makes faith and gold plenty. With faith you can invest in missionaries and their spreading bonuses, or purchase units and dominate. With gold you can invest in everything or purchase diplomats. Or purchase diplomats in the city you settled next to a city state cluster just for this reason. Or pay for an outstanding army, something you really cannot do with Tradition.

If you play builder, maybe tradition is better. If you want a mix of aggressive expansion and a strong late economy (compared to Authority), then progress should be better. I've played progress tall with some civs that asked for that.
 
An issue I'm finding is that tradition has a really good second policy but progress does not. It has a good 3rd and 5th policy. Culture for buildings is good long term. Its terrible on turn 35. The worker is an alright social policy.

The happiness policy (which should always be your 6th) is currently the worst social policy in the game without competition.

I'm leaning to agree with those who have suggested that tradition's +2 population is too much. My reason is its strong culture.
 
An issue I'm finding is that tradition has a really good second policy but progress does not. It has a good 3rd and 5th policy. Culture for buildings is good long term. Its terrible on turn 35. The worker is an alright social policy.

The happiness policy (which should always be your 6th) is currently the worst social policy in the game without competition.

I'm leaning to agree with those who have suggested that tradition's +2 population is too much. My reason is its strong culture.

Honestly, Tradition and Authority are pretty well balanced at this point. Progress could probably use a slight bump up to bring it in line. Taking a pop off of Tradition makes Authority the king, at least from testing.

G
 
Honestly, Tradition and Authority are pretty well balanced at this point. Progress could probably use a slight bump up to bring it in line. Taking a pop off of Tradition makes Authority the king, at least from testing.

G
What kind of bump do you have in mind? I was wondering about moving the TR bonuses from Fealty back to Progress on the Organization policy, but that's probably not what you were thinking..?

I do want to point out, btw, in the above experiment Progress had 22 cities while Tradition had 16, that is a very important difference to consider. However it's still a well-done comprehensive experiment....I think it shows the early power of Tradition and the Capital bonuses ripple effects across the empire. I don't think that's a bad thing but I assume that it shows Progress is lacking in early-game power.
 
I would like to reiterate that after 500 turns, the tech and policy counts for both games were identical. Going in, I thought Tradition would be ahead in policies and Progress ahead in Techs. But there did not seem to be much difference in overall culture and science income. This surprised me and I think it ought to be the way I expected. So, it seems to me that Progress needs a Science buff and a culture nerf (or Tradition needs a culture buff).
 
I would like to reiterate that after 500 turns, the tech and policy counts for both games were identical. Going in, I thought Tradition would be ahead in policies and Progress ahead in Techs. But there did not seem to be much difference in overall culture and science income. This surprised me and I think it ought to be the way I expected. So, it seems to me that Progress needs a Science buff and a culture nerf (or Tradition needs a culture buff).
What medieval tree did you take? 4-city Tradition+Artistry is going to have a drastically different output than 8-city Progress+Statecraft.

I don't think any of the tree's Culture/Science needs to be touched, other than a few balance tweaks (like I said, I wouldn't mind Progress getting the TR bonuses now in Fealty restored. That gives some early game power to the Organization policy.)
 
What medieval tree did you take? 4-city Tradition+Artistry is going to have a drastically different output than 8-city Progress+Statecraft.

I don't think any of the tree's Culture/Science needs to be touched, other than a few balance tweaks (like I said, I wouldn't mind Progress getting the TR bonuses now in Fealty restored. That gives some early game power to the Organization policy.)

The Medieval Tree did not have anything to do with how we got to the Medieval Era. The completed trees of Progress and Tradition were all that were relevant.

In both games, after the early trees were complete, I took the Authority opener and the first policy on the right so as not to mess up the comparison.
 
Hmm... I think the scaler getting a bit more love might be all that's needed to bring progress up to par. the scalers for authority and tradition are extremely solid compared to Progress'
 
Hmm... I think the scaler getting a bit more love might be all that's needed to bring progress up to par. the scalers for authority and tradition are extremely solid compared to Progress'
I think the progress scaler is way better than the tradition scaler. 1 food in the capital and 5% growth? I'd much rather have the culture for techs, which scales with era.
 
Hmm... I think the scaler getting a bit more love might be all that's needed to bring progress up to par. the scalers for authority and tradition are extremely solid compared to Progress'
We should be careful. If Progress has some small flaws (I think the tree is solid), we should consider
a) rearranging the policies
b) adding a slight buff
I just want to reiterate that Progress should not be overbuffed.
My suggestion is to add in the old TR buffs for being behind on techs/policies on Equality or Organization, it sounds like precisely the kind of thing Progress wants.
Adding a little bit of Culture to the scaler shouldn't hurt, though (if we want to do that instead of the buff I proposed), because Progress has delayed policies and has weak overall Culture.
 
I still think that looking at a Medieval Era comparison may draw the wrong conclusions. For example, you could look at it this way. If Progress starts to take off in Renaissance or Industrial, and yet was equal to Tradition into Medieval, then you could argue that Tradition is too weak! After all it didn't give you much of a head start and the progress over took it.

Or maybe the two continue to be equal, or Tradition overtakes. Ultimately we don't know which is the point. I think the game has to be taken further to really know how the trees shake out.
 
Honestly, Tradition and Authority are pretty well balanced at this point. Progress could probably use a slight bump up to bring it in line. Taking a pop off of Tradition makes Authority the king, at least from testing.

G

The happiness policy for Progress is a bit weak, and the finisher could use a slight buff. Those two would help center Progress's power in the mid-game.

I think the progress scaler is way better than the tradition scaler. 1 food in the capital and 5% growth? I'd much rather have the culture for techs, which scales with era.


Agreed.

G
 
I have never had any problems with Progress and would be very cautious of overbuffing it. I would rather actually adjust Tradition's 2 citizen jump, although I'm not sure how as I like the concept generally.
 
The happiness policy for Progress is a bit weak, and the finisher could use a slight buff. Those two would help center Progress's power in the mid-game.
I think finishing feature of gold for born citizens should just replace that happiness policy. Its such a dud of a social policy, the only reason I ever take it is to finish progress, AKA get that gold for citizen birth.

After that I would look at rearranging. I try to rush the hammer/gold per city, but I have to take that culture/food for buildings second, which is generally timed so that I'm no longer building buildings, I'm buildings settlers, a worker or some military. Its really common for me to only get 0 or 1 activation before my third social policy.

On a related note, I would reduce tradition's border growth. Your capital currently will grow to all workable tiles needlessly fast (before Renaissance), and your other cities have more tile growth than they really need. This is a serious bonus that players overlook, it makes God of the Expanse a nightmare to balance, and it creates an extremely strong tradition-authority mixed strategy that the AI can't use.
 
I agree with CrazyG on the state of progress: The first thing to address is the happiness policy (which is always the last-picked policy for me, and often the finisher is the real reason to pick it, as CrazyG pointed out). However, I think it's good to have a happiness-oriented policy and also one that gets strong in the later game, but a little immediate impact in a way that falls off later is needed in my opinion. The trade route bonus perhaps... it's not too strong later, but pushes early while fitting into progress.

The second thing is - at least for me - a total non-variation in the pick order: It's almost always the Worker, then rush to the Gold/Hammers, then Food/Science, then Happiness. For CrazyG, it seems to be the same but for the worker policy which he leaves out in the beginning. Switching the Gold/Hammers to first tier is too strong, I think, and switching Workers to second tier makes it irrelevant. Switching the Food/Science to first tier also seems not good, as it seems to nail down anyone with early city connections (Askia, Hiawatha, Carthage) on Progress. How about recombining 3 Food and 10 culture on building as left tier 1, and 3 Science on city connection and 10 culture on building as right tier 2? Does that make progress' growth too strong?
 
On a related note, I would reduce tradition's border growth. Your capital currently will grow to all workable tiles needlessly fast (before Renaissance), and your other cities have more tile growth than they really need. This is a serious bonus that players overlook, it makes God of the Expanse a nightmare to balance, and it creates an extremely strong tradition-authority mixed strategy that the AI can't use.

Everything noted here I consider a feature. My capital growing quick just means I get my best pick of tiles. The other cities do not have more than they need, instill buy tiles as tradition. Expanse just got a major nerf, and to me dipping strategies should be encouraged not pushed away, as it greatly increases the variety of the game
 
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